


The War At Home: Day 1

by serendipityxxi



Series: The Void [3]
Category: Haven (TV)
Genre: AU, Aether, F/M, M/M, Multi, Polyamory, The Troubles, The Void, fixit fic, heart hounds, spidren, the fog wall
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-10
Updated: 2018-08-20
Packaged: 2019-06-06 22:39:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 19,107
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15205007
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/serendipityxxi/pseuds/serendipityxxi
Summary: Audrey, Duke and Nathan escape the Void and solve the Troubles. Mostly...





	1. Not a Soft Morning After

**Author's Note:**

> This monster fic has come in at 90k~ I'm going to be posting it as 4 or 5 separate fics to make it a less intimidating read. Chapters will go up once a week. 
> 
> So many many many thanks to @Jadzibelle for all the editing, betaing, hand holding, flailing, listening to all my whining, incredible amounts of patience and reassurance as I worked on it! I definitely would not have finished without her!
> 
> Gars and heart hounds are stolen shamelessly from The Sword of Truth series. Spidren are stolen with the utmost respect from Tamora Pierce's Tortall universe.

 

Audrey wakes up to daylight streaming in through the curtains and an empty bed. She’d meant to be up earlier, really, she had. She stretches, pleased to find that all her myriad of aches and pains are missing for the moment. There’s the smell of pancakes from the kitchen and the sound of Nathan and Duke talking quietly.

For a moment she closes her eyes and pretends it’s six months from now; everything is normal and this is her life, waking up and eating breakfast with her guys before she gets ready for work. She imagines Nathan and Duke nudging around each other in the kitchen.  Nathan can feel again, he can feel Duke’s stubble as he plants a kiss on Nathan’s bare shoulder. Duke’s lost the broken, haunted look in his eyes because there’s no more aether in his blood, no more Troubles to worry about. Things are _normal_ and the town is rebuilding. When she pads out there in her pajamas and her bed hair they’re both going to smile and kiss her good morning and get to actually eat all those pancakes without the station calling. Maybe they’ll even get to call in late and spend the morning exploring all the ways that Nathan can feel Duke.

Audrey rolls over and buries her face in the pillow, feeling foolish and girly but oh, how she wants that. She wants quiet, normal mornings with her boys.

Then she takes a breath and gets out of bed. If she wants those lazy mornings she’s got to make them happen.

She goes straight to Nathan’s gun safe and spins the dials. She finds that her fingers are trembling. What if... she can’t finish the thought. It’s only when she sees the scarf sitting there with the crystal wrapped inside that her hands stop shaking.

It’s real.

They really found it.

Ok, granted she’s not sure what she has to do now that she has it, but it’s a start. Her plan for the morning is to sit and reread Charlotte’s notes and see if there are any clues there.

She reaches into the safe and immediately knows there’s something wrong.

She picks up the bundle carefully and unwraps it. “Stop it,” she mutters to her hands that are shaking again. She pulls back a corner and her heart sinks into the floorboards.

“Good morning, sleepy head,” Duke says behind her, making her jump.

Audrey has no words. She turns, holding the cloth out to him.

“We thought you were going to sleep through breakf-,” his eyes take in her expression and drop to the bundle in her hands. The crystal that was clear yesterday is black now, split in two pieces.

“Audrey…” Duke puts out a hand and then draws it back to shove it through his hair.

“Duke,” she says, low and plaintive, like he can fix it somehow.

The cold well of despair filling her stomach tells her the truth. No one can fix this. Everything they did was for nothing. There will be no lazy mornings. Nathan will never feel Duke’s touch. Duke will stay forever haunted by what he could become. There will be no curing the Troubles.

The doorbell rings and neither of them move, as if the loss of hope has turned them to stone. They stand there staring at the broken controller. Audrey doesn’t know how she’s going to move ever again.

Distantly she hears Nathan answer the door and then he calls for Duke.

“Just a second, Nathan,” Duke yells back, eyes still trained on the broken crystal.

“Might want to get out here now,” Nathan answers and his voice is so odd that Audrey flips the fabric over the controller and pulls her gun out of the safe. She hands Duke her spare with a grim look.

“Just in case,” she murmurs.

“Coming!” Duke yells, pretending all is normal. He tucks the gun into his waistband and so does she. Duke enters the living room first so Audrey won’t be able to see what the matter is until he clears the doorway.

He doesn’t clear the doorway.

He stands blocking the hallway, with his big shoulders and stupidly tall frame, so Audrey has to squeeze around to see.

“There you are,” the woman standing in the entryway sneers. She’s short, with light brown hair, and she’s wearing one very conspicuous glove. Audrey wonders for a split second if she might have Jordan’s Trouble. Then she places the face. Lisa Hawkins, who blows up everything she touches.

Lisa is looking at Duke with hatred in her eyes and that’s bad. She’s a hand’s breadth away from Nathan which is worse. At their feet are the remnants of…something that might have once been a baseball. Audrey can see a piece of red stitching from where she stands.

“Lisa,” Duke greets, voice so very, very careful.

“Oh, you know my name. What a surprise!”

Duke stretches out a conciliatory hand. “Let’s just talk, okay?”

“My little brother told me he saw you. I couldn’t believe you’d be stupid enough to come back here. Did you know ever since you did this to me I’ve got to wear these all the time?” She gestures to the gloves. “I wouldn’t want to accidentally blow someone up,” she starts peeling the remaining glove off her right hand, “like I did my boyfriend. You remember him, right?” she asks, dropping the glove.

“Lisa,” Audrey finally manages to squirm around Duke and presses forward. “Just breathe, everything’s going to be okay.”

“No! It’s not going to be okay! I can’t touch anything without it exploding!” Lisa lashes out and Nathan’s dragonfly thermometer shatters to dust, the pieces fly everywhere. One hits Nathan near his eye. Audrey and Duke both flinch.

“Lisa,” Nathan has his best calm in the face of Trouble voice on. “Many people have learned to live with their troubles.”

“And how am I supposed to learn to live with this?” Lisa demands voice high pitched and edging on hysterical. She gestures wildly to the pile of dust at their feet getting way too close to Nathan for Audrey’s liking.

“Lisa,” Duke steps forward, drawing Lisa’s attention. Nathan with his stupid noble self doesn’t move away from her though. “Listen, I know what happened to you sucked, alright.”

“No you don’t!” she stalks forward, past Nathan, and Audrey holds her breath until she’s passed him without touching him. “You don’t know anything because you weren’t here!” She gets up in Duke’s face. “You bailed! We’ve all been stuck in this hell hole, being bossed around by guys with tattoos! They tell us where to go and how much food we can have! How much electricity! You weren’t here for the darkness Trouble, you didn’t see the bodies, flayed to the bone!”

Audrey watches Duke wilt under Lisa’s words, sees all the ease they’d worked so hard to bring to him seep out.

“But he came back, Lisa,” Audrey points out. “He came back because he cares. He cares about this town and about saving all of us.”

“He cares?” Lisa rounds on Audrey, in amazement. Audrey feels a twinge of shame, she’d been singing the same tune just the day before yesterday. “He doesn’t even know us!” Lisa rants. “He doesn’t know the people he hurt! I’m not the only one you know!” She turns back to Duke. “Alex Sena? Do you know him? He freezes everyone around him if he gets scared.”

“You’re wrong.” Nathan says it with certainty, says it like a fact. “He may not know all of you but he does care.  He’s Troubled, Lisa, just like you are. He didn’t Trouble you on purpose. He didn’t set out to do any of this to you. This was done to him. These Troubles exploded out of him despite everything he did to try and stop it. He was going to take himself away and let them out where no one could get hurt. That was his plan. Does that sound like the plan of a man who’s out to ruin your life on purpose?”

Lisa flings her arm out and the lamp shatters with a crack. “I don’t care!” she shouts. “I don’t care if he was doing it on purpose or not! What he wanted doesn’t bring my boyfriend back! How am I supposed to live like this? Someone has to pay!”

She spins and grabs Duke’s face in the blink of an eye. And nothing happens. She tries again and when that doesn’t work she slaps him. It rings loud across the living room.

Duke closes his eyes as if it’s what he deserved.

When she goes for the second slap though, he grabs her wrists.

“Stop it!” he orders with a shake and for a moment Lisa cowers back. Duke lets her go immediately. “You can’t hurt me,” he says gently, almost apologetically. “I’m immune.”

Lisa laughs, it is hollow and brittle. “Of course you’re immune.” She hangs her head, her Troubled hands loose at her sides. Defeat sinks into her posture. And then it’s gone.

She drops to the floor, hands held inches above the wood. “What if I bring the whole house down?” she snarls. “I bet you’re not immune to that!”

“Lisa!” Duke goes to his knees beside her. “Please don’t do that.”

Lisa looks up at the please, face full of surprise and then she smiles. Power feels good, that smile says. Audrey fights down a shiver.

“Why shouldn’t I? Why shouldn’t I bring whole this place down around all our heads?”

“Do you know why I left?” Duke asks and Audrey goes still, she wants to hear this. “I left because I didn’t think that I could help any of the people I troubled, that I would only make things worse. I was afraid of that.”

“Don’t be afraid, Duke.” Lisa’s voice is chilling and final. She reaches her hands out toward the floorboards.

“Lisa, you don’t want to do this,” Audrey fights hard to keep the desperation out of her tone. She has to do something. She didn’t survive the Void to get blown up in Haven, damnit. Nathan loves his house and Duke doesn’t deserve this. She moves carefully, stepping around them so she can look Lisa in the eye. “Listen Duke came back to help us. He came back-“

“Why are you defending him? Aren’t you mad? He left you and Wuornos and the rest of them to clean up his mess!”

“I was mad,” Audrey admits. She glances at Duke whose brows are knit in a guilty frown. Even after everything last night. She hopes he reads the apology on her face. She flicks her gaze back to Lisa who looks suspiciously between them. “I was,” Audrey repeats, stressing the past tense. “And I know that you’re mad at Duke. I know that he hurt you. But he didn’t mean to. He came back to Haven to save you, he came back to help save everybody.” Lisa flinches back at her words disbelief and hope crowding her face. Audrey reaches out a hand to Lisa, her brain buzzing like a hive. “Come on, I can prove it,” she says, rising to a crouch, beckoning Lisa forward.

Lisa rises slowly, and takes a hesitant step in Audrey’s direction then glances back at Duke and Nathan who are cautiously crossing the floor themselves.

“Come with me, Lisa. It’ll be okay,” Audrey says forcing her voice steady, calm. _Don’t spook the girl who could blow us all up_ , she tells herself. She recognizes the emotion in Lisa’s eyes; behind the anger there’s despair there too, but the guilt is what’s eating her up.

“Listen, Lisa, we’ve worked a lot with the Troubles, okay. I’m kind of an expert on them,” Audrey gives a wry smile.

“That’s what they all say,” Lisa agrees, letting herself be led down the hallway.

“So, the way these things work,” Audrey presses on, refusing to let Lisa derail her, “usually is that there’s a trigger, something that starts your Trouble. Were you scared that day at the Gull?”

“Angry,” Duke answers for her, voice an apologetic rasp. “She was angry. She had a complaint and I didn’t listen.”

Lisa crosses her arms over her chest and glares at him. “I wasn’t even rude about it! I was giving you constructive criticism! You didn’t have to curse me!”

“I didn-" Duke stops, takes a breath. “I’m sorry,” is what he says instead.

“What happened?” Audrey prods, trying to get them back on track. “You made a complaint. Duke didn’t listen and?”

“And I walked off. I told Jeffrey,” her breath cuts off at the name, eyes filling with tears. She gives the painting on the wall a look as if contemplating blowing that up too.

“You told Jeffrey?”

“I told him we were leaving. We’d never go back there again. I felt a sting, and I thought it was a bug. I thought a mosquito or something bit me,” she laughs, high and hysterical. “And then I touched a glass and as I touched it I knew something was wrong. I felt… something.” Lisa shakes her head. She doesn’t have the words to describe it but Audrey thinks she gets it.

“What were you feeling when you touched the glass?” Audrey prompts.

“Mad, like you said,” Lisa nods at Duke. “Jeffrey didn’t even care about the Kahlua, he didn’t want me to go talk to you. He wasn’t listening to me, you weren’t listening to me. I felt like so much empty noise... Powerless, I guess…” Lisa finishes, looking thoughtful.

“That’s good, that’s great,” Audrey nods encouragingly. They’ve made it into the bedroom now. The broken crystal sits on the dresser only partially wrapped in the scarf. There’s muck still coating it and that’s what she wants right now.

“Duke,” she gestures to him, and he steps carefully towards her, eyes wary.

“Yesterday we weren’t around,” Audrey tells Lisa who nods.

“I came by. Twice. And the day before,” she reveals.

Audrey swallows because, wow. That is…that is dangerous. She’ll have to deal with that later though.

“We weren’t here because we went to the place where the thing that makes the Troubles comes from,” she explains. Lisa gives her a skeptical look but Audrey presses on. “We couldn’t have gotten there if Duke hadn’t been able to get through the fog.” She doesn’t explain about Haillie or the thinny or anything like that. Lisa doesn’t need to know all the details. “We went there to get something to help us end the Troubles, Lisa,” she opens the scarf holding the crystal and shows it to Lisa. Behind Lisa, Nathan’s eyes go wide in shock as he sees for the first time the crystal is broken. His eyes shoot to Audrey’s but she shakes her head minutely.

“We can’t get rid of your Trouble, Lisa,” Audrey says with sympathy. “But we think maybe we can help you to control it, do you understand?” Audrey asks.

“Like an on/off switch?” Lisa replies, expression doubtful.

“Exactly,” Audrey answers. “You know Gladys right? How her trouble only activates when she’s feeling vain?”

Lisa nods again. “But she can’t control that. It just happens.”

“Well, I think your Trouble is similar. You can’t touch anything and that’s scary. You feel like your Trouble is controlling you.” Audrey waits for Lisa’s nod. “That’s a pretty powerless situation to be in,” Audrey says not overdoing it on the sympathy, just someone who understands. “Well, with this Gladys could control it. She could glow whenever she wanted to or she could choose not to even if she was feeling vain. And so could you, Lisa.”

“Audrey…” Nathan interrupts and she wants desperately to tell him to shut up. Instead she waves a hand at him.

“I know it’s not refined yet, Nathan, but we can still try.”

Nathan closes his mouth, he still looks worried but Audrey knows what she’s doing. She thinks.

“Duke,” She gestures him forward, scoops some of the muck off the crystal and pastes it on his fingers.

“Duke will have to put it on you since I can’t…” Audrey makes a gesture and gives Lisa a wry smile.

Duke catches Audrey’s eyes, gives her a slow searching look. She can almost hear him asking if she’s sure about this. Nonetheless Duke holds out his hand to Lisa who edges forward, suspicion warring with hope in every line of her body. She wants this. She wants it so bad. She just needs the smallest little nudge to get her to believe it.

“Think of a time you felt powerful, Lisa,” Duke suggests, voice calm and smooth as a Sunday drive in the country. “Where everybody listened to you. Use that as your off switch,” he says, wiping the sludge on Lisa’s hand. He takes both her hands in his, rubs in the muck with his thumb.

“You’re in control, Lisa,” Audrey soothes. “You can turn this on and off. You didn’t mean to hurt Jeffrey or any of the other things you did with your Trouble, those were accidents. Now you’re in control of it. You decide whether you want to use it or not.”

Lisa gives a sob and looks up. “I didn’t mean to hurt Jeffrey. I…” she sobs again.

“It was an accident,” Duke agrees as Lisa begins to tremble. “You didn’t know it would happen. Things are different now,” he tells her.

Audrey watches Lisa stare at Duke’s thumbs on her hands like she’s transfixed.

Audrey grabs one of the scented candles from the dresser and holds it out to Duke who takes it and presents it to Lisa.

“You’re in control,” he coaches her.

Lisa reaches out with shaking fingers.

Audrey holds her breath.

Her hand closes around the wax and nothing happens.

Nothing happens.

Lisa sinks to the floor sobbing and Duke goes with her. He wraps his long arms around her and rocks her comfortingly. He almost looks like he’s ready to cry himself. Nathan stands in the doorway, eyes squinted in confusion as he tries to work out what the hell just happened there. Audrey takes the moment to sag against the dresser, victory singing in her blood.

It worked.

It worked!

“Can I… am I still Troubled?” Lisa finally composes herself enough to ask.

Audrey nods slowly. “Yes. I’m sorry. I think you always will be. There’s no way to take the Trouble out without killing you.”

Lisa nods, solemn and thoughtful.

“How do I turn it back on?” is her next question.

“When you feel helpless or like you’re out of control it’ll turn on,” Nathan responds. “That’s how Kira’s Trouble works, but her trigger is anger,” he explains to Audrey who nods.

“So I just have to feel like no one cares what I think, easy,” Lisa laughs and the candle in her hand shatters, covering her and Duke in shards of wax. They all jump.

Duke takes her hands again. “But you’re in control, Lisa. You’re not helpless,” he tells her.

She nods, it’s stronger now. “I’m in control,” she whispers quietly, as if to herself and then without warning pushes off the ground.

Nathan’s bedroom floor thankfully does not explode beneath them.

“Thank you,” she tells Audrey, looking like she wants to hug her.

Audrey shrugs and takes a step back. “You should thank Duke. We wouldn’t have gotten it without him.”

Lisa looks at Duke who has risen as well. She opens her mouth but closes it again.

“Maybe thanks aren’t necessary,” Duke offers looking embarrassed.

Lisa gives him a wry look. “I appreciate that you came back,” she says stiffly, like a little kid forced to use their manners. “You could’ve stayed gone so…” she nods once and then leaves. Audrey wonders how she got there, doesn’t dream of offering her a ride home though. She isn’t that nice to people who try to blow up her house and her boyfriends.

Nathan follows her out and locks the door behind her.

Audrey and Duke lock eyes, relieved and amazed and not sure what just happened. Duke drops to sit on the bed, Audrey turns to tuck the crystal back into the safe.

Nathan clomps back down the hall.


	2. A Cure For the Troubles

“The hell was that?” Nathan demands from the doorway.

Audrey turns to him and lifts a hand but Nathan’s arms are folded across his chest, an angry red flush creeping up his neck and over his face.

“Was that real?” he asks and there’s hope in the back of his eyes, something that dares to believe.

For a moment Audrey is tempted to say yes, to get out the muck and smear it over as much of Nathan as she can so that he’ll feel again, feel Duke, and sunshine on his cheeks, and how hot his coffee is, and everything else. She glances at Duke and sees the same desire warring in his eyes.

“No,” she confesses.

She can’t do that to him. If she’s right, feeling betrayed is what triggers Nathan’s Trouble and lying to him now would be a betrayal. A big one.

“Audrey--” Nathan cuts himself off, jaw working hard. “You have any idea how risky that was?” he tries again.

Audrey smiles watching him rant and pace. She catches Duke’s eye. He raises his eyebrows at her. He certainly isn’t going to put his foot in this mess those quirked brows say.

“What if it hadn’t worked? What are we going to do now that it did? You know she’s going to spread the word around town in the next thirty minutes!”

Audrey’s smile broadens. “Good!” she announces.

“Good?” Nathan is flabbergasted, if it were anyone else he’d be pulling out his hair, Audrey’s sure of it.

“Nathan,” Audrey says, waiting for him to turn and face her fully. “We just cured a Trouble,” she grins, bouncing her eyebrows.

Nathan pauses. Looks from Audrey to Duke who shrugs.

“I…” he takes a breath, looks heavenward and then back. “Did you really?” he asks weakly.

“She can control it, Nathan. She can turn it on and off at will. If that isn’t the next best thing, I don’t know what is.”

Nathan slowly sinks to the mattress next to Duke. “Saw the crystal broken like that... thought-- thought that was it-- the end.” He shakes his head.

Audrey crouches in front of them. “So did I,” she admits. “I probably wouldn’t have put it together if Lisa hadn’t shown up when she did.” Duke reaches out and squeezes her shoulder. Audrey puts her hand up over his. “But what’s a Trouble? They’re made of aether, right? Croatoan told me aether that’s been exposed to humans is easily malleable, like gold that’s been well handled. You need belief and will power to mold aether. That’s it. You believe it, you can do it. All Lisa needed was to want it bad enough and to believe she could do it.” Audrey rocks back on her heels and laughs, startled and delighted.

“We may have just found a way to cure the Troubles, boys!”

Nathan is shaking his head but there’s that cautious hope in his eyes still. “Won’t be that easy,” he says. “Not for everybody.”

“We’re going to need one hell of a story,” Duke suggests.

Audrey nods. She gets to her feet. “We should call Dwight. Have him get most of the Troubled members of The Guard together. We’ve got work to do.” She smiles and for the first time in weeks she thinks everything might just be okay. She’s not grasping at straws and trying to figure out indecipherable cryptic messages. She’s doing what she does best, following her gut. And her gut says this is going to work.

Audrey gets to enjoy the hope bubbling in her system for approximately sixty seven seconds.

Dwight doesn’t answer his phone. She’s about to call Gloria instead -she’s going to need something to inject the Troubled with to make them believe they can make a switch- when the knock at the door startles her. She answers it before Nathan or Duke can, prepared to fend off the fiends of hell, or the Void, but it’s Dwight. His shoulders are hunched and his face is pinched.

“Audrey,” he greets, bobbing his head, his whole posture screams uncomfortable.

“What happened?” she asks.

“Can I come in?”

She steps back and lets him in.

“Nathan, Duke,” he nods at the other men in turn. He shuffles in the doorway and Audrey suspects if he had a hat he’d have swept it off and started fiddling with the brim by now.

“Dwight?” Audrey puts her hand on his arm.

“My people just found Haillie Coulton,” he says shortly. “She’s dead. The no marks killer.”

Duke says not a word, just goes white. Nathan puts his hand on Duke’s shoulder, steadying him.

“I was coming over here from the Teagues’ place to tell you--” Dwight takes a breath now, looks lost for a moment then steels himself. “Dave is dead too. Croatoan tried to take him over and Dave fought him back til he couldn’t anymore.”

Audrey stares. She’s heard Dwight’s words. She just… can’t process them. Dave is dead. Dave who gave her fashion advice and kept secrets from her and is obnoxious on the short wave radio like you wouldn’t believe.

“How’s Vince?” she asks.

Dwight shakes his head. “Calling for blood. I left him with Gloria. Hoping she can calm him down.”

Audrey nods. She feels like she needs to sit down. She feels like she needs to run screaming out the door. Croatoan is not dead. He is not dead and he has Hailie’s power for opening thinnies at his disposal now.

When she tunes back in Dwight is telling Duke that Bill and Meg are fine. They weren’t hurt. Meg is freaked out but his people are still on hand.

“Call them in,” Audrey orders. “Call any of your people who are Troubled into the station. We have a big problem and we’re going to need them.”

Audrey heads for the bedroom to change, leaving Dwight standing there looking concerned but Duke or Nathan can explain what’s happened.

“And call Gloria, too! I’m going to need her and a lot of needles!” she yells over her shoulder. She’s had enough of being sucker punched wearing her pajamas.  

Nathan follows her in, he looks exactly like someone who’s been told a close family friend has died violently. His eyes are hollow and his shoulders are so taut she’s sure they’ll pop out of their sockets any minute.

“Parker,” he says, “what do I tell Dwight?”

Audrey contemplates letting him in on the secret, telling him. It’s Dwight after all. But then she considers his position with the Guard and his position within Haven and the inescapable visual impact of whether his Trouble is on or off.

“We can’t tell him,” she says dropping the shirt in her hands and going to Nathan. He’s nodding already. She wraps her arms around his waist. He’s solid and warm and still smells of sleep and their bed. She’s grateful they’re not still just partners. It’s so much better this way than holding him at arms-length. “We need him to believe. If we have Dwight on our side so many of the others will believe too.” She says the words into the softness of his t shirt, breathing them over his chest, wishing for a hundred things but mostly the ability to make Nathan believe it’s possible.

Nathan strokes a long fingered hand up and down her back, nods his chin against the top of her head.

Audrey holds onto him and takes deep breaths.

“I’m sorry about Dave,” she tells him quietly.

Nathan kisses the top of her head, squeezes her tight. “Me too,” he answers in typical laconic Nathan fashion.

“Guess I’ll have to start calling you baby bear over the short wave, now, in his honor,” she says and startles a laugh out of Nathan which is exactly what she wanted.

“Don’t you dare,” he warns as they part.

Audrey gives him her best ‘who me?’ face.

Nathan gives her a stern frown then slips back out and Audrey goes back to finding clothes to wear to face the day.

What do you wear to give a whole town back control of their lives and take down your own personal equivalent of Voldemort, she wonders? Turns out jeans and boots is the answer to that question, even on this, possibly the most important day of her life.  With her hair tied up and her teeth brushed Audrey feels if not ready to face the day then ready to do _something_.

They walk out of Nathan’s warm yellow house and Audrey can already feel the difference. Maybe she’s just imagining things, but it feels like the air has changed somehow between yesterday and today. It’s colder, with a dry brittle quality to it. Croatoan is here. In her town. There are twenty thousand people depending on Audrey to keep them safe from this monster whether they know it or not.

She’s going to need as much help as she can get.

Dwight has stops to make, people to pick up. He promises to meet them at the station. She, Nathan and Duke walk around the side of the little yellow house to Duke’s truck. Nathan’s been using it since the Bronco broke down.

“Always knew you coveted my girl,” Duke smirks at Nathan, patting the hood of his very ugly vehicle.

“Guess you’ll have to learn to share,” Nathan smirks back and Duke’s jaw drops open.

Audrey smiles, a comforting warmth settles in her chest. If nothing else she has this. She has the two of them.

They pile into the truck and they’re packed in tight, three across on the front seat, Audrey in the middle and she honestly can’t complain. Nathan drives. He knows what streets to avoid. Duke stares out the window at the changes that have come to Haven since he left. It’s a town under siege now. There’s spray painted warnings Nathan and members of the Guard have left on the corners of certain streets, garbage piling up woefully in empty lots.

Audrey takes in the quiet houses and quaint shop fronts as they drive through the nearly empty streets of Haven. Everyone is staying home and laying low now that the power is back on, except for the folks still taking shelter at the schools. You might see a curtain shift here and there as the sound of the engine draws attention, but that’s it. The sun does its best to brighten things, sparkling off the water the way it always does. The air still smells like sea salt and pine sap. It smells like home here.

Another reason to fight for this place, these people.

Audrey is so lost in thought she almost misses Duke’s question.

“The no marks killer is Croatoan right?” Duke asks, voice tight with emotion.

Hailie, Audrey realizes and squeezes his arm in sympathy. “Yes,” she answers carefully. “Croatoan is the no marks killer.”

Duke nods silently, eyes trained out the window.

Audrey doesn’t know what else to say. A hot wash of shame swamping her. She can’t help feeling like she’s failed him. “I’m going to stop him Duke. It won’t bring her back, but I’ll get him,” she says. It’s a promise she’s made Duke before. She hopes she never has to make it again. He’s lost too many people to the Troubles. They all have.

“Thought you had gotten him,” Nathan’s voice is mild, but Audrey feels her cheeks heat anyway.

“I thought so too. Broke my damn crystal on him,” she grouses.

“He must have used aether to heal himself,” Duke suggests.

It’s as good a theory as any, Audrey supposes.

“Did Mara say that was a thing?” Nathan asks.

Duke shrugs, tight lipped as ever as to what Mara did or did not say. Audrey wiggles her toes in her boots and wonders if Mara had intended on creating herself a new pinky toe out of aether eventually. She’s not much for going barefoot but she’s grateful not to be down to nine.

Audrey watches Duke out of the corner of her eye though and starts to really wonder what happened between him and Mara. He’s tender about it in an obvious way, and Duke Crocker does not wear his wounds on his sleeves. He guards them and hides them with bravado and false cheer. He doesn’t seem to be able to do that with whatever happened with Mara.

By the time they get to the station to meet Gloria and Vince they’ve hashed out a plan. Vince looks wrung out, grief painted large across his face. Nathan does the manly handclasp and then pulls Vince into a half hug, slaps him on the back a few times. Both their eyes are watery by the time they pull away.

“We’ve got everything set up for you in here, Audrey,” Gloria distracts them all, motioning to the conference room.

“Is it true?” Vince asks, voice trembling. “It’s not a cure?”

Audrey shakes her head sadly. “No, Vince, but it’s the closest we’ve gotten in five hundred years, right?” she squeezes his hand.

Vince nods and takes a seat in the back. Even grieving like he is - Audrey thinks with a wry smile - he still has to be in the middle of anything to do with the Troubles. She turns her attention to Gloria and Vickie. They’ve got her all set up they say. A table has been placed at the end of the room with screens around it for privacy. Chairs set up for those waiting. Audrey wonders if Sarah had faced rooms like this after the war or if she’d retired from nursing to have James soon after. She could ask Vince maybe, but she’s not going to.

Audrey shows Gloria and Vickie the crystal, explains she’s going to drop it in the saline solution they’ve got set up and let it absorb. Gloria teaches her how to inject a person safely.

“How do you know it’ll work?” Vince questions.

“Croatoan.”

That shuts him right up. For a moment.

“Did she give it to you, Nathan?” Vince rounds on him to demand.

Nathan gives Vince a wry smile. “Think my trouble’s more useful turned on right about now,” he drawls slowly with no room for argument.


	3. Dwight

Dwight comes in the next moment anyway and that’s that. He has a lot of Guard members with him, some Audrey’s familiar with, some she doesn’t think she’s ever seen before. They’ve all clearly been briefed because they file in and take seats to wait on their turn. The room fills with an expectant hum, all these people looking for an answer. There’s so much riding on this. A lot to be gained and a lot to be lost if it doesn’t go the way they hope. Audrey gestures Dwight behind the screen.

Dwight looks…nervous. It’s not a look she’s seen on the big man before, hands in his pockets, shoulders up to his ears. She imagines he wishes he had his mane to hide behind. She wonders briefly why he cut it off.

“You might want to sit down for this,” Audrey tells him with a crooked smile

He sits on the edge of the folding chair, the Kevlar vest shifts, probably digging into his thighs. Audrey wonders what it’s like living in armor.

“Can you roll up your sleeve for me?” she asks, and Dwight’s head shoots up.

Audrey laughs. She used her ‘calming down the Troubled’ voice. Dwight probably knows it well but has never had it directed at him. Dwight laughs too and his shoulders relax.

“Sorry about that,” she shakes her head.

“I’m fine, Audrey. It’s fine. Let’s just do this,” he rolls up his sleeve and lays his arm on the table between them.

“Once we do, I have to ask you about what triggered your Trouble,” Audrey warns again, just so he isn’t blindsided. “We need to know the trigger in order to turn it off.”

Dwight nods silently, ever the stoic Viking.

“You have to work on this Dwight, it’s not going to just happen. It’s like we’re building the switch figuring out your trigger and the catalyst is like we’re hooking the switch up to the breaker box so it gets electricity. Make sense?”

Dwight laughs at her analogy and nods. “Got it, Audrey,” he agrees.

Audrey swabs his arm with the alcohol, reaches for the first syringe in the stack and uncaps it. She flicks it to break up the bubbles and finds her fingers are shaking a little. Dwight reaches across the table and takes her hand.

“Audrey,” he says and pauses, chewing over what he wants to say.

Audrey pauses too.

“Thank you,” is what he finally says and Audrey’s whole chest hurts at the raw sentiment of the words.

Audrey brings the needle to Dwight’s skin and pushes the plunger.

When they’re done they walk out into the room full of guard members, cops and ex-cops. Dwight stops just outside the screens. Audrey walks halfway down the room pulls her sidearm and fires three shots into the floor. The wood paneling at her feet shatters. A splinter ends up in Vince’s hair. Dwight’s vest remains unmarked.

The room erupts into clamor.

“Can you turn it back on now, Dwight?” Audrey requests and the room falls silent without being asked.

Dwight nods and screws up his face in thought, reaching for the emotion, bringing it to the forefront of his mind like she coached him. Audrey fires another shot at the floor and watches as this one changes trajectory in mid-air, soaring across the room to punch into Dwight’s vest.

Dwight grunts and staggers back a step, staring down at his vest.

Then he looks up at Audrey with a “look Ma, no hands” sort of grin, as if he’s performed a bike trick instead of mastered the aether in his veins.

Audrey grins back.


	4. A Little Good

It’s neither easy nor simple getting to the root of people’s Trouble, even this set of people who have been primed to already have an idea of what that might be. The next five guard members take over an hour and a half altogether with varying degrees of success at controlling their Troubles. By then the other twenty waiting members are anxious and bordering on unruly, with more people trickling in as they sneak away and make phone calls to loved ones and friends about what’s happening at the HPD.

It’s clear that things are going to start getting out of hand and soon. They need more people than just Audrey distributing the cure.

Audrey walks out of the conference room despite the protests to find even more people milling around in the bullpen, in the corridor. There also appears to be an entire construction crew swarming over the police station. Vince informs her they need to fortify the place if Croatoan is really here in the flesh now. They can’t risk him getting access to the cure. Audrey thinks of the ball of aether currently stashed in the evidence lockup and agrees with him. Plus, it’d be good to have more cameras and a better idea of who’s in and out of the place.

Audrey leaves Vince and Laverne arguing over the hammering. She slips into Nathan’s office with a sigh of relief. Nathan, Duke and Dwight are gathered around yet another map of Haven sticking thumbtacks into positions -- Audrey assumes where they think Croatoan may be holed up.

Dwight isn’t wearing his vest. The sight of him without it brings Audrey up short with a surge of hope.

It takes her a moment to tune back in and explain the problem outside.

“I could help,” Nathan offers.

It’s a good idea. Nathan’s been one of the most visible people working to get the Troubles solved since the shroud surrounded the town. They believe in him... the ones who voted not to have him executed.

Dwight’s cell phone buzzes at just that moment.

“Oh good,” Dwight says after reading it, “someone’s spotted two giant spiders with human heads on Mulberry. My day clearly wasn’t exciting enough.”

Audrey and Nathan exchange looks.

“It’s not a Trouble, Dwight,” Audrey says. “It’s a spidren.”

“A spidren?”

“A creature from the Void,” she explains, dread settling heavy and cold into her stomach. He's letting creatures from the void into her world.

“Duke and I’ll handle it,” Nathan tells Dwight abruptly, and she can't help feeling like he just does it because of the look on her face. She sincerely hates Nathan Wuornos' hero complex.

“Well now,” Duke says holding up a hand, giving her a surge of hope, maybe they won't- “that depends. Do you have flamethrowers in the armory?”

Nathan fights a smile and Dwight chuckles and Audrey resists the urge to scream. It's not funny. It's not something to joke about. They can't go out there-

“Let’s go look,” Nathan offers, clapping Duke on the back.

“Check in before you leave,” Audrey requests as they file out the door. Someone has to go. Nathan and Duke are the only people who've dealt with them besides herself. It makes sense that they should go.

“Looks like it’s just you and me,” Dwight says after it swings shut, the look he gives her is so full of sympathy it makes her bristle. She takes a breath and gets a hold of herself.

“Yup,” Audrey pats Dwight on the shoulder with false cheer, “just you and me and all the Troubled people you’re going to help me talk into figuring out their triggers.”

“What?”

Audrey smiles wide and fake and bright and pushes him out of the room.

She gets Dwight set up in the conference room with one of his guard members and a needle full of fake crystal juice, then she goes to find Nathan and Duke. They were supposed to be safe from this, damnit. They're home. They were supposed to be safe.

She catches them just about to leave the armory, they’ve got Kevlar vests of their own on and Duke is indeed strapped up with a flamethrower, while Nathan’s got a shotgun. They’re kinda hot all armed and ready for spiders, she’ll admit.

Audrey stops in the doorway and watches Nathan adjust one of the straps for Duke with intense concentration. He smooths the fabric down when he’s done, fingers careful and focused. Audrey has to clear her throat before she can talk and the smart ass comment dies in her mouth.

“Come back to me,” is what pops out before she can pull it back. They don’t need that, they don’t need her freaking out on them and worrying and… and Nathan is ducking his head with a slow smile while Duke rubs the back of his neck and looks bewildered but pleased.

“That’s the plan,” Duke tells her, rocking back on his heels.

Nathan isn’t playing it cool at all, he kisses her, hands cupping her elbows and lifting her onto her toes for a better angle. She’s breathless when her heels touch the ground.

Duke stands behind Nathan, uncertain with his hands half raised. Audrey rolls her eyes and gets her hand around the back of his neck, drags him down and kisses him. “You come back too,” she orders against his lips.

When she pulls away Duke might be blushing, the tips of his ears at least are redder than usual. Audrey is charmed. She doesn't want to lose him. She just got him back.

“And this?” She snaps the strap of his flame thrower. “Kinda hot. Bring it back too.”

Duke laughs. “Preferably not covered in bug guts?”

“That would be optimal,” she confirms, fighting a laugh despite herself.

They turn to find Nathan standing in the doorway, arms crossed over his chest, eyebrows raised.

“Bug guts? Used to be good at this flirting thing,” he teases.

Duke chuckles and slings his arm around Nathan’s neck, dragging him out of the room, their laughter ringing down the hall.

“Don’t let him let the spidren gnaw his legs off!” Audrey calls to Duke.

“Will do!”

“Hey!”

And then the door swings shut and they are gone taking all the cool and calm and collected Audrey was pretending to be with them. She sags against the wall for a moment, takes some deep breaths. They’ll be fine, she tells the anxiety coiled in her gut. She's not going to lose them. They'll be fine. They have to be.

\-----

Two hours pass before the next crisis. It’s almost one by now.  The hammering is still going, but Audrey’s helped seven Troubled people figure out how to flip their switch to off. Dwight’s managed five. The bullpen is no less crowded, as despite Dwight’s decree, people are still calling friends and loved ones. Vince steps behind the screen instead of ushering in another Troubled person.

“You need to see this,” is all he says.

Audrey follows him, heart in her throat, as they push through the crowds of the Troubled. There must be close to forty people in the bullpen now. They’re sitting against the walls or standing in clusters talking. They all look antsy and hopeful and Audrey can feel their eyes on her as she crosses the room. She wants to help them all but wow is this a lot of pressure on her.  

Vince walks her to the front door, opens it and gestures outward. Audrey would like to play dumb, _it’s Main Street_ , she wants to say, _so what?_ But she can’t. It’s obvious what he means. A storm is building. The sky outside is a roiling oily mess. Black clouds march across the horizon as far as the eye can see. Not just any storm clouds either. These are aether clouds. Like in the Void.

Audrey shuts the door, goes into her office, and calls Nathan and Duke.

“You mean the cloudpocalypse that’s happening over our heads? Yeah, we might have noticed that,” Duke agrees when he answers Nathan’s phone. Audrey's knees go weak with relief at just hearing his voice.

“Where are you?”

“The Haven Moose Farm,” he answers with relish.

Audrey pulls her phone away from her ear to give it a suspicious glare.

“Why do you sound so happy about that? What’s happening with the spidren?”

“Yeah, we handled that,” Duke answers his voice a study in nonchalance. There’s a strange noise in the background Audrey can only assume is a moose bellowing.

“Are you sure?”

“Yep,” he pops the p and sounds so damn smug Audrey can’t help smiling.

“Tell me about it later. I need you guys to go get Marion Caldwell for me.”

“Nathan says that’s not a bad idea,” Duke relays. “Well, actually, he made that mildly impressed face that he does sometimes, so, I’m taking it to mean that.”

“Why are you answering Nathan’s phone?” Audrey finally clues in enough to ask.

She can practically hear Duke’s grin on the other end of the line. “Did you know spidren shoot webs?”

“Is he okay?” Audrey demands and she hates the note of fear that’s entered her voice.

“He’s fine, Audrey,” Duke’s voice has gone all serious, warm and reassuring.

“I’m fine, Parker,” she hears Nathan’s voice echo.

“We just gotta figure out how to get the webbing off his hands.”

“I bet you had a fun time getting that phone out of his pants when it rang,” Audrey snarks and then realizes, oh shit, Duke is allowed in Nathan’s pants. She enjoys the smile that spreads slowly across her face. It’s a nice thought.

“A gentleman never gropes and tells, Audrey Parker,” Duke chides and his voice has gone smug again, so self-satisfied that it makes Audrey laugh.

“Marion Caldwell, Duke. And set her up in Nathan’s office when you come in. We might start a riot if we let them know she’s skipping the line.”

“Roger that, ten four—“ Duke has clearly run out of cop things to say in the pause that follows and is probably furiously trying to think of another one.

“Bye, love you!” Audrey says into the phone and presses end before he can answer.

Her heart is galloping like a moose in her chest, she feels pretty good dropping that bomb on him though. She needs a little good in her life right now. There’s at least forty people she’s going to have to convince to give her all the details of the traumas in their lives that might have sparked their Troubles and then sort through their emotions to pick out the one that will work as the key to turning their Trouble off and wow, she really wishes Claire was here. The thought strikes her hard and she has to blink furiously for a minute to clear her eyes.

She’s got no time for this.

She squares her shoulders and heads back in. Croatoan is doing something, they’ll probably need all the help they can get as soon as they can get it.


	5. Cloudpocalypse

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bonus fic for [Duke POV at the end of Chapter 4 is here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15448338)

The calls keep coming in.

Vickie updates her in between cures.

In the next hour and a half three more Troubled people have been found dead. The no marks killer is to blame for all three. They only know for sure what one of the Troubles was. Nikki Coleman’s great-uncle, Greg Coleman. It would be a terrifying Trouble - hatred turning to poison, blackening your veins – but Croatoan probably doesn’t understand how it works. He doesn’t hate the Troubled. He thinks they’re all beneath him. If he does understand how it works Audrey’s willing to bet he’s planning on unleashing it on their home world. That isn’t going to happen.

What’s really worrying is how fast he’s collecting Troubles. With the body count adding up the town is bound to notice soon. The last thing Audrey needs is another town-wide panic.

An additional cause for concern is the number of monsters being reported around the city. Vickie has to explain what a kelpie is (a murderous horse with flaming eyeballs that drags you underwater? What the hell? Who thinks up these things?) when one is reported running around near the docks. Dana Salmalin -whose Trouble is that she can talk to animals- managed to rescue Logan Echolls before it dragged him underwater, but the horse had still run off before she could capture it.

She sends Nathan a text asking him to call the Glendower compound, see if they can get anybody from the Troubled side of the family to see what they can do about the kelpie. She has no idea if they can even contact the men but it never hurts to try. She sends the text to Duke too, just in case Nathan’s still got webbing on his hands.

She manages two more cures before Gloria slams into the conference room.

“Dwight,” she calls from the back of the room, “you need to get your people under control. Now!”

Dwight pokes his head from around the screen on the left, Audrey’s already on her feet.

“The Harrington boy’s in there giving off anxiety like a skunk shedding stink and it set off the Thomas girl, she’s got an invisible forcefield Trouble, you can’t get within three feet of her if you set her off, she’s bumping into people out there, setting them off. It looks like we’re headed for a brawl, especially with those Evans brothers.”

“I’ll calm them down,” Dwight assures Gloria and Audrey. He opens the door just as Michael Evans throws the first punch. Sam Swarek doesn’t take it lightly. Dwight tries to get in between them and takes a punch to the jaw that stuns him. Audrey’s halfway to the door when the scream starts up.

“Oh no, that’s Lydia!” Vickie announces, eyes wide in alarm. “If her scream goes on long enough it can shatter your eardrums!”

Audrey’s taken two steps at a run when the scene outside the door freezes.

It’s like everyone in the bullpen has been paused, like a tv screen. Dwight is frozen with his arms out pushing apart Evans and Swarek. There’s a young woman with long red hair, her mouth open in a muted scream.

“Audrey?” Duke’s call sounds loud in the sudden quiet.

“Duke!” she answers, letting all her relief seep into her voice.

She clears the door and spots him, the only movement in the otherwise still room. He’s whole and healthy as far as she can tell, apart from the cut across his forehead. There’s three butterfly bandaids holding it closed though so she doesn’t worry too much. Beside him is another man she recognizes, a cop, when HPD still had cops, and since he’s moving through the frozen bullpen she figures he’s got to be the Sena with the freezing trouble. She glances behind them but doesn’t spot a frozen Nathan anywhere.

“Nathan’s bringing Marion around the back,” Duke answers her unspoken question with a reassuring smile, brown eyes crinkling fondly at her.

Audrey smiles back at him, relieved, and for a moment it feels like old times, feels like they're the only two people in the room. They're not though. Audrey drags her attention to the newcomer.

“Hey, Alan,” she greets.

“Alex, Audrey,” he corrects with a roll of his eyes.

Audrey doesn’t blame him. They’re co-workers after all. But hey, she got the A part right.

“Right, right, Alex, Alex Sena. Hi. Nice of you to help out like this,” Audrey waves to the unmoving bullpen.

Alex nods. “Duke asked me to come. He said he was going to help me turn this off.” Alex doesn’t phrase it like a question but there is a lot of doubt in his tone and Audrey doesn’t miss the suspicious look he gives Duke.

“Yes. That is the plan,” Audrey agrees. “Let’s go into the conference room,” she offers.

They walk past all the frozen people. She knows from Nathan that Alex has enough control already that he could probably unfreeze them now but she’s not looking forward to dealing with that mess so she doesn’t ask. They can stay as they are for the next fifteen minutes.

Duke waves his hand in front of Dwight’s nose and looks tempted to do more before Audrey shoves him forward. Duke gives her nothing short of a pout over his shoulder. Audrey shakes her head with a grin, gives his hand a squeeze as she overtakes him. He's really okay.

Duke stops at the doors to the conference room. “I,” he taps the frame, “am going to go meet Nathan and Marion,” he tells her, tilting his head in the direction of the offices, clearly giving her space to do her thing.

“We’ll be here,” Audrey agrees. Business. Back to business.

Audrey gets Alex set up in the conference room, and is about to sit down behind the table when she catches sight of Duke still hovering by the door and gets an idea.

“Duke,” she calls, sticking her head around the partition. “You should probably take care of this one,” she announces.

Duke looks like _he’s_ been frozen for a second, eyes comically wide in surprise and dismay and a flash of there and gone again fear.

“Audr—”

“Yes. I’m sure,” she cuts him off, gives him a stop messing around look.

She badgers Duke into the chair on the opposite side of the table then she swipes one of the needles and tells him “ _I’m_ going to check on Nathan and Marion.”

She squeezes his shoulder, hoping it conveys ‘you got this’ and leaves them actually alone, which probably conveys it better. If she stayed and hovered Duke might doubt himself and he needs this, this way of making amends. Audrey knows they can tell him it wasn’t his fault til they’re blue in the face, but if he can help, if he can fix at least a little of what he feels responsible for, that will go a much longer way to making him feel better.

Alex’s Trouble isn’t as debilitating as Lisa’s, he’s already developed some level of control over it, Audrey’s hopeful he’ll be open enough to Duke for this to actually work. She’ll be hard pressed to find a reason it didn’t otherwise.

At least the station is quiet.

Audrey’s stomach rumbles reminding her she’s missed lunch. Her feet take her automatically to the vending machine. It’s still empty. Of course it’s still empty. It hasn’t been refilled in three weeks and no one’s turned up with a junk food trouble yet. Audrey sighs and resigns herself to pushing on without any chips.

She heads for Nathan’s office. Nathan and Marion are settled in chairs when she pokes her head around the frame.

“Parker,” Nathan smiles, a real one and Audrey will never get tired of the way that lights his face or the thrill that he’s pleased to see her. He’s unharmed, not even a new scratch on him and his hands are web-free as far as she can tell.

“Quiet out there,” he comments.

“Yeah, Alan did his thing,” she explains, “good timing too, we were about to have a riot.”

Marion looks concerned but Nathan nods, it’s par for the course for their life since the shroud surrounded the town.

“You okay?” she asks Nathan.

He gives her a wry smile and wiggles all ten fingers at her.“Web free,” he declares and Audrey grins. “’m fine, Parker. Everything okay here?”

Audrey nods then pulls the syringe out of her pocket and takes the chair next to Marion’s.

“Thanks for coming, Marion. We’ve got good news and a favor to ask,” she begins.

Marion’s chin trembles once Audrey’s explained what they have.

“Does it really work?” she asks Nathan.

Nathan doesn’t stumble or stutter, just nods like he has absolutely no reason to doubt their ‘cure’.

“It really works,” he says, squeezing Marion’s hand on the desk.

Marion promptly bursts into tears, which does nothing to stop the gathering clouds outside. They’re going to need to turn on the lights in a minute or two if she doesn’t get ahold of herself.

“You remember how bad it was when you came back after the meteors?” Marion asks.

Audrey’s immediately intrigued. Nathan never told her about helping Marion a second time.

Nathan nods, calm and steady. “Was a rough time for you,” he agrees, eyes gone soft, sympathetic.

Marion shudders then takes a deep breath, clearly grasping for control. Nathan pats her hand, _take your time,_ the gesture says. Marion's eyes fill and she turns a grateful look on him.

“I went to a psychiatrist after that," she begins haltingly. "I’ve been taking meds to help me control-” she waves her free hand, “all this.”

It’s not a bad solution. Audrey hadn’t even thought of it.

“It’s been like living wrapped in cotton,” Marion hisses, surprising her. “It’s no life at all! Nothing’s terrible, I don’t feel angry over the little things anymore like getting cut off in traffic or dropping my groceries and nothing’s great I could win the lotto and I’d just be okay. Last month was Conrad’s birthday. I couldn’t even cry for him. Even missing him is muted. He deserves my tears but-” Marion shrugs helplessly. Nathan pats her hand again. He's doing that thing where he looks at a person and gives them his full attention. It's heady having those intense blue eyes focused on you. _He's here for you_ the look says, he'll listen and he'll help however he can. His wall of steady, quiet strength is yours, whatever you need, and that’s a promise. He has no idea how powerful that look is.

Marion does. She keeps talking.

“I thought I was doing it for the good of the town but really I just wanted it all to go away,” she admits, and Nathan nods, with feeling, like he gets that, “all the hurt. I wanted to lock it all away. But you can’t do that. You lose the good too, you start to feel like you’re not even living, just existing,” Marion shudders. “Conrad deserved my tears and I had none to give him,” she repeats, a plea in her voice, she needs someone to understand.

She’s not looking at Audrey though, she’s looking to Nathan who’s holding her hand and nodding, brow furrowed, looking for all the world like he does understand. Nathan may not feel physical sensations but emotions? He feels each and every one so keenly. Audrey can imagine there are times when he wants to turn them all off too.

“I ran out of pills a couple days after the shroud came down and I’ve been so scared since,” Marion whispers. “So scared but so relieved,” she confesses, startling Audrey. “It’s like I’ve been given a second chance at life. I need this to work,” she tells Nathan, squeezing his hand. “I can’t go back to being numb like that.”

Nathan flinches at the word numb. Audrey’s heart clenches for him.

Marion blushes pink, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean…”

Nathan shakes his head, squeezes her fingers in turn, his expression calm and steady once more. “S’fine,” he says, warm and soothing, the way he gets when he’s dealing with the Troubled that Audrey’s not even sure he realizes. “We’re gonna try our best so you don’t have to,” he assures her.

Audrey starts with her usual questions – quiet and gentle, adding to what Nathan's already built -  what were you doing when your Trouble first triggered, what were you feeling. Marion has clearly spent a lot of time thinking about it. She understands her trigger, already has coping mechanisms, it doesn’t take long. The station bursts back into roaring life before they’re done so Audrey can only assume Alan’s Trouble is also under control. Dwight tramps by the office with Evans and Swarek in cuffs so she’s guessing he had help. She hopes they sent the Harrington kid home.

\-----

It should be near sunset when she and Marion get outside. It gets dark early in the winter, but it’s even darker now because of the storm clouds Croatoan’s generating. The aether clouds hang even lower than before, menacing black waves about to crash over the town. There’s an eerie yellow haze to the little light that’s left, it catches on the empty tree branches, paints highlights on the underside of the storm clouds and across the dark bay at the end of the street .

Marion takes a deep breath and screws up her face in concentration. They’d called her out to see if she could help with the fog wall after Duke had left but she hadn’t been able to move it. It’s a slim chance she’ll be able to do anything about this now, but they have to try.

Marion raises her arms and pushes her hands out, like she’s parting a curtain. Audrey watches the clouds expectantly but after a few moments when nothing happens she turns a sympathetic gaze back to Marion. Marion stamps her foot in frustration and a slice of light shines down on her. For a second Audrey thinks it’s lightning, but the light is steady like a thin spotlight. She glances up and there’s a break in the clouds. Marion looks up too and laughs, delighted.

“Wrong trigger?” she jokes.

Audrey laughs and nods.

Marion screws up her face again, reaching for anger or frustration or whatever and this time, this time the clouds begin to part. They move slowly skidding apart as the breeze Marion generates starts to pick up. Leaves and debris skitter down the street, and patches of orange and pink sky begin to show between the grey.  

Other people come out of the station, drawn by the brightening light. Vince, Duke, Alex, a few others. They stand on the steps or walk down onto the sidewalk. Marion glances their way and loses her grip on the clouds.

“Forget them,” Audrey encourages, waving everyone back a few steps. Marion closes her eyes and concentrates.

It takes a while but before the sun goes down there’s clear pink sky fading into a dusky cornflower blue with stars peeping out. A cheer goes up from the assembled audience and Marion turns flushed and tired but there’s a hint of pride in the straightness of her spine and in the embarrassed smile she shoots Audrey.

“It’s a beautiful sunset,” Audrey compliments, making Marion grin wider.

“That was nice,” she tells Audrey as they head back inside, “it was nice feeling helpful. It’s been awful living in this shroud, to not know what horrible Trouble is going to erupt next. It felt good to do something.”

Audrey nods. She knows just how that is. She hopes there are a lot more people who feel the same way.

She hopes Croatoan chokes when he looks outside and sees his doom clouds have been blown away.


	6. Family Dinner

An hour passes, an entire hour of trying to get Cally Tyrol to get a hold on her trigger enough to turn on and off her ability to make machines work. She doesn’t bring them to life like Louis Pufahl, just whatever’s wrong will suddenly be right, but she can’t hold it. She’s got cousins who can, they can fix things and when they get upset the things they fixed break again. Cally’s at the station today because she’s married to one of the Guard and he called her, told her what was happening, despite Dwight’s orders.

Things have been hard since the shroud. She didn’t get triggered til everything went to hell. The radiator conked out one night and she fixed it somehow, her kids needed it. It just had to work til morning when they could go buy the new part. She’d believed it and it had worked through the night, but in the morning the shroud had still been up and Cally’s Trouble hasn’t worked to fix things since. She’s broken a lot of things. The fridge, the toaster oven, she blew up the TV one night, so she’s been reading to the kids a lot.

She and Galen are electricians in the real world, they own their own business. What will happen if things go back to normal and she’s still like this? She laughs high and close to hysterical when she tells Audrey about breaking their radiator twice now and how hard it was for Galen to get it working the second time. She’s afraid he’s going to leave her if she doesn’t get a hold of her Trouble. Leave and take the kids. What will she do then?

Audrey is out of patience and out of ideas, Cally’s despair is seeping under her own skin. Every time she settles her down, Cally manages to rile herself up again. Audrey feels scrubbed raw by the hopelessness Cally is pushing. She gets it. Things are bad, but she needs to calm down so they can help her! Audrey is barely restraining herself from tearing out her hair when Duke pokes his head behind the screen.

“Nathan needs to see you,” is all he says, and Audrey’s brows shoot up to her hairline in alarm.

“No, no. Hey, it’s fine, Audrey,” he pitches his voice warm and soothing like a good scotch, settling her nerves. “Just take a break, go see what Nathan needs. I’ll take over here,” he says with a smile at Cally, one of his purposefully charming ones. Cally blushes. Audrey resists the urge to roll her eyes but gets up. She leaves the radio they were trying to fix there though in hopes that Duke might get through.

Audrey doesn’t go far. Just a few steps away so she knows they don’t know she’s there. She’s got a sneaking suspicion that Duke just wanted to give her a break.

The kicker is Duke gets Cally to calm down. He asks her about her kids, gets her laughing about their antics. Duke is a great listener, it’s something Audrey appreciates about him and he uses those skills on Cally now. He’s charming and engaged, asking questions, keeping her talking. He asks her about the good times with her husband, of course he knows the guy. Duke tells her about the time Galen was at the Gull two months ago with his buddies, he was so drunk and so proud of his family. He showed off pictures of their kids to the whole bar. Told that same story about Nicholas shaking down the Tooth fairy.

“I saw him out in the main room just now, Cally,” Duke says, voice growing serious. “He was pacing and wringing his hands, guy’s so nervous for you. He loves you. He’s not going to leave.”

Cally bursts into tears at his kind words.

Duke mops her up.

Audrey rolls her eyes. Suck it up, she wants to yell but that’s not the right tack here.

Duke’s got the right tack. After that crying jag she seems much better, centered in a way Audrey couldn’t have made her. Frustration builds in Audrey’s muscles, curls in her fists. She should have been able to do this. She should have been able to help.

“See that clock up there,” Duke’s voice flits out to her, Audrey’s gaze goes to the old clock on the wall. It stopped working at least six months ago. No one’s bothered to take it down or fix it since.

Audrey hears Duke explain that to Cally. “Think you could try to give it a little boost for us?”

“Sure,” Cally agrees tremulously, “clocks are easy.”

Audrey keeps her eyes on the clock as Duke murmurs to Cally he tells her to keep focusing on her breath and her heartbeat and making her mind still. He’s mostly just talking to keep her half focused on him, Audrey knows. And wouldn’t you know it, the clock starts ticking.

“I did it!” Cally bursts out, excitement in her voice brighter than anything Audrey’s heard out of her.

“You did!” Duke agrees, pride filling his tone. “Now how’d it feel having it work? Follow it back.” Duke’s voice is warm and patient, encouraging, he believes she can do this.

Cally is quiet for long moments, the clock fills the silence with loud ticks.

“It’s hope,” she says finally, laughter bubbling out of her.

“Hope?” Duke laughs too and Audrey peeks around the screen to watch his face crease under the grin. It’s a good smile, one he really means. “We might have some of that,” he offers, picks up one of the syringes full of their fake cure.

Cally smiles and lays her arm across the table. Duke swabs a spot clean with the rubbing alcohol and injects her with nothing but pure saline and whatever’s in the controller crystal. He holds the cotton ball over the injection site and pulls the needle free. It occurs to Audrey that no one’s shown Duke how to do that, he wasn’t in here this morning when Gloria demonstrated.

Duke takes Cally’s other hand and brings it up to keep pressure on the spot. “Hold onto that,” he tells her and Cally nods, grin turning tremulous, full of wonder as she glances up to the ticking clock.

“Things are going to get better, Cally,” Duke tells her, faith and determination in his voice. “We’re all going to work on making sure of that.”

“They’ve got nowhere to go but up, right?” Cally offers voice shaky but the smile sticks.

On the wall the clock ticks on.

Audrey turns and leaves before either of them see her.

She’s jealous. She’s jealous Duke could help Cally when she couldn’t. How ridiculous is that? She should be glad, she should be _grateful_. And on some level she is. But fixing the Troubled is _her job_ , she should be able to do it.

Audrey goes looking for Nathan.

Nathan’s not working with any of the Troubled. Vickie tells her he’s in his office.

There are still people milling about in the bullpen. Someone’s set up folding chairs so they’re not on the floor or loitering in small groups anymore. She knows the instant someone spots her because the conversation goes from a low murmur to hushed interest. She knows they’re talking about her _._ It’s what she wants. She needs them to believe she can fix them for this to work but right now all that belief feels like weights around her neck.

She escapes down the hall, slipping through Nathan’s door without knocking. There’s food, real food, lasagna and garlic bread sitting in disposable foil pans on his desk. The scent is overwhelming and she doesn’t know how she missed it, tomato and cheese invades her nose, making her stomach grumble.

“Close the door quick, Parker, or we’ll have to share,” Nathan drawls out and Audrey laughs. She shuts the door behind her and steps in.

“Where did this come from?” Audrey asks. After a long day of unpleasant surprises this is a good one.

“Kyle Pierce, you helped him this morning. Said the least he could do was make you dinner.”

“It’s nice to know we won’t be having peanut butter and olive sandwiches when I get through with the mess of people in the bullpen,” she jokes, thinking of the increasingly bare fridge. “Don’t eat it all,” she wags a finger at him.

Nathan doesn’t get up from his chair or move much at all but he arches a brow and Audrey realizes that’s not what he had planned.

“Parker, did you have lunch?” he asks.

“Seriously, Nathan?” Audrey shrugs, they have more important things to do. “I was busy. Also, you’re one to talk Mr. I-Can’t-Feel-Hungry-So-I’ll-Eat-Whenever.”

Nathan rolls his eyes and points to a chair. “Sit,” he orders.

“Nathan, I can’t.” She thinks of the faces out in the bullpen, all that terrible hope riding on her. She doesn’t have time to…

“Can’t cure everybody in one day, Parker,” he says in his most reasonable voice. Like she’s somehow not being reasonable?

“I’m not trying to,” she argues.

Nathan fixes her with a look. “Now you’re making me admit Duke was right,” he grimaces. “Sit. You need to take a few minutes to take care of you before you go back to taking care of the whole town.”

“Nathan--”

He cuts off her protests in two steps, taking her elbows and drawing her in, running his hands down her arms. “Audrey,” he says against her temple, “you’re exhausted. Take a couple minutes. Everything will still be going to hell after you’ve had dinner,” he jokes.

Audrey closes her eyes and inhales that unique mix of old spice and ivory soap and Nathan. She leans her head against the side of his and nods finally. She could use a minute. She lets him nudge her into a chair, his hands are warm, his touch grounding, making her feel less likely to fly apart at the seams.

It’s an impressive feat getting the lasagna out of the pan and onto paper plates using only two plastic forks. There’s a spatula in the station kitchen but neither of them is up for getting it. They’re lucky Nathan has a stash of paper plates and plastic forks in his middle desk drawer. With a lot of giggling and dropped pasta they manage. Audrey watches Nathan settle into his own chair with his plate, not sure how to thank him for knowing she needed a break. Instead they eat in silence for a couple minutes.

Audrey’s about to ask Nathan for an update on the calls that have been coming in when Dwight clunks in with a six pack and the spatula. It must be one of the last six packs in Haven, alcohol was one of the first things they ran out of. Audrey doesn’t want to know how Dwight got it, she’s grateful he did.

“I sent everybody home,” Dwight informs them.

Audrey opens her mouth to protest, to tell him to bring them all back but Dwight looks as tired as she feels and just the thought of fixing another Trouble is enough to bring a wave of exhaustion over her. The weight of all these stories is piling up. The trauma, the fear, the spiraling feeling of being out of control they all bring with them. It’s a lot to bear. Audrey knows she’s helping. Giving each person back their sense of control is heady, but with each person she sees, the fear that it won’t work again weighs heavier on her mind. These are high stakes they are playing for. The fate of their town rests on their shoulders. All these people who are so much more real today than they were yesterday.

“We don’t need folk travelling in the dead of night and getting ambushed,” Dwight adds and that makes sense. That’s reasonable.

Nathan nudges a chair at Dwight.

Dwight helps himself to a slice of lasagna before he sprawls in the proffered chair.

Duke comes in a few moments later and flops himself down on Nathan’s couch, feet kicked up over the arm rest to annoy Nathan.

“Cally Tyrol,” he announces from his prone position, “can now control her Trouble. No need for applause,” he assures them, holding up his hands.

“I’ll try and restrain myself,” Nathan replies wryly but his actions give him away as he sets a plate of lasagna on Duke’s stomach and squeezes his shoulder in acknowledgement. Audrey snags one of the cold beers, presses it into Duke’s outstretched hand. “Thank you,” she whispers, kissing his cheek swiftly.

Duke ducks his head looking pleased and bewildered and it makes her want to kiss more than his cheek.

He digs into his food and Audrey wonders how many plates he’s pressed on her, how many meals she’d have forgotten or ignored that he’s made her and Nathan eat since she’s known him. Even this one tonight is partially because of him. It’s so easy for her and Nathan to get too wound up in work; Duke helps them find the balance. Otherwise they end up overworked and useful to no one like she was just now.

She can admit now that he and Nathan were right. She feels so much better after some food and a few minutes of silence. The weight of the town isn’t a boulder dragging her under anymore. She’s not ready to pick back up the mantle of savior but she doesn’t want to run screaming anymore. So that’s something. She leans back in her chair and closes her eyes, sipping slowly at her drink. Duke starts talking to Dwight and for a moment with the cold glass under her fingertips, the beer on her tongue and Duke’s voice rolling like waves she could be in the Gull on any night of the week before all this went down.

Nathan takes plates out to Gloria and Vickie and Vince. They come trailing back in so Duke makes room for Gloria and Vickie on the couch. Gloria pats his arm as she sits, mutters a “good to have you back kid,” at him that has him ducking his head again. Dwight drags in a chair for Vince who keeps unnaturally quiet, face drawn, eyes lost in grief.

There’s not enough beer to go around but Vince declines in favor of the flask on his hip. Duke teases Vickie that she’s not old enough for the last one. Vickie rolls her eyes and threatens to finish his too if he’s going to talk instead of drink.

They eat quietly and the silence feels comfortable, feels like family. This is Audrey’s family. The thought settles like a weight in her stomach, this one is warm and comforting. It feels good.

Then Dwight clears his throat and dinner is over. “We did good work today,” he starts.

“But we need to start being selective about who we fix tomorrow,” Audrey finishes, setting her beer bottle down on the desk. The overheads sparkle off the brown glass.

“Exactly,” he agrees.

“We’re going to need a list of Troubles. Parker and I have started one,” Nathan reveals. He and Audrey exchange amused looks at Vince’s outraged glance. What kind of cops does Vince think they are? “But I’m guessing one or the both of you have a much better, more extensive list somewhere. And whatever’s on yours Vince, we can assume Croatoan knows about it from–” Nathan cuts himself off realizing he’s treading on sensitive ground.

In all the time Audrey has known Vince he’s rarely looked his age. He looks old now, tired.

“From Dave,” he finishes for Nathan. “From when he possessed Dave. I know.”

“You can have mine,” Dwight agrees slowly, deliberately. “This,” he waves his hand to encompass the shroud and the town under siege, “isn’t getting any better by keeping secrets.”

Audrey looks to Vince who still looks drawn. Gloria reaches out and flicks him between the eyes. Vince jerks back in surprise.

“Go on, Stretch,” she growls out. “You saw that sky today. We’re going to need all the help we can get.”

Nathan stifles a laugh, Dwight hides a grin and Vince shakes his head, fumbling a thumb drive out of his shirt pocket.

“I thought it would come to this,” he says finally.

Audrey takes it from him carefully. She knows this is Vince’s life’s work she holds in her hands. Dave’s too.

“We use it to end Croatoan,” she promises. “Nothing else. We’ll keep it safe.”

Vince squeezes Audrey’s fingers. “Dave always believed you’d save Haven, one day.”

“We all are,” she promises. “We’re all going to save Haven.”

\-----

They spend hours poring over the combined lists, crossing out names of the recently deceased. It’s a depressing task. Way too many of the more dangerous Troubles are on the list of people the No Marks Killer has gotten recently. They argue about which Troubles to fix, which would be the most useful. They have no real idea what Croatoan’s planning, if he’s just going to keep picking off the Troubled one by one from his hide out. Stabbing him clearly doesn’t work, so what to do with him when they find him is a whole separate problem.

They do know the creatures he has that he could bring over, so they spend some time updating the others on the gars and crocotta and other creepy things from the Void. Dwight already knows about them as Nathan had filled him in when the calls started coming in. The guard that weren’t in the station today have been fighting back the creatures that have been spotted. It’s impossible to tell how many Croatoan’s brought over with the Coulton Trouble though.

Dwight and Nathan have warned as many people as they can about the crocotta. Everyone pretty much stays indoors after dark anyway, Croatoan’s beasts aren’t the only creatures that come out in the dark in Haven now.

Audrey hopes the crocotta run into Trouble Alley. She hopes the invisible monster there tears them apart.

They go round and round on the pros and cons of each Trouble and the person who wields it until Gloria is fed up.

“Enough. You each pick a top ten, and it’s your job to get those people in here tomorrow. Meeting adjourned.” She bangs her hand like a gavel on Nathan’s desk.

Duke and Vickie laugh. Nathan and Audrey exchange rueful smiles. It’s late. Later than Audrey realized.

“Muscles, why don’t you escort an old lady home,” she orders Dwight.

“Let me just get my shotgun,” Dwight agrees and it’s a joke but it’s not. Dwight could go get a shotgun now, his Trouble’s turned off. She did that for him. Audrey takes in a breath and lets it out slow. They’re curing the Troubles. It’s a heady thought.

Gloria’s got family waiting for her, her husband and baby Aaron, Vickie’s staying with her too. Audrey’s glad. McHugh’s staying with Dwight, and probably a few more people from the Guard. Dwight’s good at collecting strays.

“Vince?” Dwight calls, “let me drop you off,” he suggests.

“No, thank you,” Vince shakes his head. “I’m going to head over to the Herald, look through the archives.”

“It’s late, Vince,” Nathan says but Audrey puts her hand on his arm and shakes her head.

“We can drop you off,” she tries.

“No. Then I won’t have my car when I’m ready to leave.”

Audrey wants to argue, can tell Nathan wants to push but maybe Vince needs some time alone to grieve. It’s the least they can give him at the moment.

They compromise, Nathan follows Vince to the Herald and waits til the light goes on inside before pulling away.


	7. Heart Hounds

They drive slowly on the way home, eyes peeled for things ready to jump out at them in the dark. The lights of Duke’s truck reflect off a set of eerie yellow eyes but whatever’s attached to them turns and vanishes without incident.

Dark clouds scud across the full white moon. Normal clouds, Audrey reassures herself, not menacing black clouds full of aether. It’s hard to imagine but out there beyond the shroud there are people having a perfectly normal night, people who are going to bed without a worry that the world will end while they’re asleep.  

The wind is fierce tonight, cold and biting. The stars are out in force, winking cold and clear at them. There are so many more without the streetlights. It’s good to see them after the empty skies of the Void.

There’s so much life here in Haven, even with the shroud and all the hardships in the town.  It’s late but some of the lights are still on, patches of orange and yellow fighting back the dark. The headlights startle an owl into flight. There’s smoke coming from chimneys. Once, in the distance, music blares from somebody’s stereo. And through it all the heartbeat of the waves follows them.

Haven is alive, and can be healed. She’s not going to let it grow sick and twisted like the void. Like Mara. Like Croatoan.

“We need to find him,” she tells Nathan and Duke, breaking the silence of their drive.

“Where would he go?” Nathan asks, steady as ever.

Audrey thinks it over. “He’d want somewhere with space, so he could set up his lab. Somewhere he can defend easily. He’d need somewhere to keep all his monsters from the Void-- unless he’s just letting them roam free which… sounds more like him really.”

“I can think of at least a dozen places that’d fit that bill,” Nathan says.

“Me too,” Duke chimes in.

Audrey knows Duke’s and Nathan’s lists don’t overlap. Haven is full of secluded nooks and crannies, houses out near the water, cabins in the woods. Since the shroud there are even more places as some people have been forced to move closer to town. There are enough abandoned houses, cabins and warehouses to keep them searching for weeks. It’s a daunting thought.

\-----

Audrey falls asleep with her head against Duke’s shoulder. She doesn’t even know when it happens. It’s been a long day. When she wakes up they’re still five minutes from home but Nathan is hanging a u-turn and Duke is pressing a phone into her hand.

Dwight sounds apologetic is all Audrey can make out, her ears aren’t quite working yet. The phrase “heart hounds” wakes her up good and proper. They never saw them in the void and Dwight’s only heard about them but she doesn’t doubt his ability to identify one when it did its best to break down a door and busted out the windows of the Carnahan house.

Rick Carnahan shot one but there were three more in the pack and they haven’t gone far.

“I need you to go get the Benton sisters and bring them out here,” Dwight requests.

That’s smart thinking. Audrey hadn’t even thought of Frankie and Amelia as an answer but they’re fast and deadly. At least as deadly as a heart hound.

“No!” Duke objects when Audrey relays Dwight’s request.

“Duke--” Audrey begins but he’s already shaking his head.

“No, Audrey, the Bentons are teenagers, kids. Dwight and his crew, they’re trained, they signed up for this.”

“No one signed up for heart hounds,” she interjects.

“They chose to be on the frontlines. The Benton girls didn’t ask to be a part of this. They’re just trying to get by.”

“Nobody asked to be a part of this,” Nathan argues, pulling the truck over. He switches on the overhead light so they can see each other.

“You’re not listening to me. Again.” Duke shakes his head bitterly. “I won’t sacrifice any more innocents for this cause,” he says and gets out of the truck. Audrey shoots Nathan a worried look before she slides out the door too. Duke is pacing in the headlights, cautious enough not to do his pacing in the darkness surrounding the truck. They don’t have time for this but she owes him his say. He’s right. They didn’t listen to any of his protests before and now Jennifer and Hailie are dead. She knows they lay heavy on his conscience.

The slam of a door announces Nathan’s gotten out of the truck too. He comes around and puts himself in Duke’s path.

“Stop!” Nathan orders, grabbing hold of his shoulders.

“Get off me, Nathan,” Duke growls and for a moment Audrey thinks they’ll come to blows once more. Instead Nathan lets his arms drop and takes a step out of Duke’s personal space. Audrey’s breath catches in her throat.

“’m sorry, Duke,” he says, palms up. “Sorry I asked you to bring Hailie into this. Sorry we didn’t protect her better. Thought it was over. Thought she’d be safe.”

“Nate--” Duke puts up one hand to ward him off, the other going to his eyes.

“Benton girls aren’t like Hailie. They’re in this, Duke. Stuck here like the rest of us,” Nathan says. “Deserve a chance to help save their home like all of us. When you were their age you didn’t want anyone sayin’ you were too young to help.”

“I had no one looking out for me at their age, Nathan!” Duke seethes, anger blazing again. “No one to tell me how foolish it is to throw myself into someone else’s war, or worse let some adult talk me into it.”

Duke turns to Audrey. “You know what it’s like in the system. Being on your own like that. Having to fight all your own battles. It’s not fair to put this on them too.”

Audrey does know. She knows exactly what it’s like to take the hits and have no one to back you up, the unfair treatment, people who think they can take advantage of you or who think they can use you because you’re just a foster kid. She and Duke know what it’s like to be all on their own but that’s not what she’s doing here.

“This is their war, Duke,” Audrey steps into the light. “I wish I could keep them out of it. I wish I could keep everyone out of it. But it’s not like Hailie and it’s not like Jennifer,” his flinch cuts to her heart, but it needs to be said and she continues, “there’s no leaving now. This is everyone in Haven’s war. This is our town and if we stand by then we let Croatoan take it from us. If we let Croatoan take life upon life without stopping him then we’re just as bad as he is because we didn’t try. The Benton girls are kids yes, but they’re powerful, they have strengths we don’t.”

Audrey’s seen the girls in action, has seen that blur of speed, the results of those powerful muscles, the man pinned to a tree with a branch through his chest, human bite marks along the edges of the gaping wound that was his torso. Even the nose had been missing. The cheeks eaten away…

“So now it’s okay to put those little girls – and that’s what you called them, remember that? Little girls. Now it’s okay to put their lives in danger?”

Audrey gets it. She gets where he’s coming from but what is she supposed to do?

“Do we leave the Benton girls out of it and sacrifice the Carnahan kids? They have three, a little boy and two little girls. Do we let them die? Do we leave Dwight’s men to die? Some of them have families, kids who are waiting for them to come home. Or do we gamble and save a lot of lives in the process?”

“The needs of the many versus the needs of the few, again, Audrey?” Duke laughs short and bitter, hangs his head. All the fight has gone out of him.

They stand silently for long moments, Audrey’s heart sinking into her heels, then Duke gets back into the truck and slams the door.

\-----

Duke stays quiet through the rest of the drive and most of Audrey’s speech to Frankie and Amelia.

Before they can answer he unfolds himself from the corner and walks around to face the girls, heavy footsteps drawing their attention. Frankie turns to follow him with her eyes but Amelia’s been well aware of where he’s been since they entered the place. Something in her recognized him as a threat from the get go, she’s been wary and it shows in the tension in her muscles, her seat on the edge of her chair.

Duke recognizes it too, he stops more than arms-length away, crouching in front of Frankie’s chair, hands hanging loose between his knees.

“I know you’re grateful to Audrey for saving Amelia,” he says softly, “and things are scary and the idea of getting to do _something_ to end some of that seems great, but you don’t owe anyone anything,” Duke tells Frankie, as serious as Audrey’s ever seen him. He glances at Amelia. “This isn’t a game. You lose tonight, you’ll probably die. Think about what that means for you, for your sisters.” He looks over his shoulder back down the hall where Sophie’s still asleep in her room.

“And what? Just leave the heart hounds to run amok? What if they come here next and we’re not prepared?” Amelia demands.

“Better to face it now, on our terms,” Frankie agrees, her young face solemn.

Duke closes his eyes and his shoulders slump in defeat.

“Just promise us someone will look after Sophie if… if anything happens,” Frankie adds.

“Of course,” Audrey assures her. For all her arguing that they need the girls she’s as disappointed as Duke that they’ve agreed.

\----

Heart hounds are as terrifying as William promised. Looking at them now, the moonlight glinting off the brown fur of a beast the size of a wolf, barrel chested with yellow fangs as long as a finger, Audrey thinks maybe he undersold them. They’re called heart hounds for two reasons, he’d said: the first is they can track you by your heartbeat. That had been awful enough. The second is that they don’t go for the throat like a normal wolf. They go for your heart, those terrible teeth snapping ribs like twigs. It hammers home the point that these creatures weren’t born they were made. No animal would do that, the throat is an easy, sure, quick kill. Going for the heart is full of malice, intended to inspire fear.

Audrey could have lived her entire life without actually seeing it happen.

They get Don Keaton, one of the Guard Audrey cured not even twelve hours ago.

He’d told Audrey how Nathan had originally talked him down when his Trouble first triggered. She’d been impressed with Nathan’s work and horrified at the picture Don painted of him when she was in the barn. Don had been able to turn things to ash when he felt guilty. Audrey had given him the cure that morning and watched as he’d turned his Trouble on and burned a stack of old forms to a crisp in seconds. It’s still a surprise when Don takes the heart hound down with him, its body turning to ash even as his heart takes its last beat in the gaping wound that was his chest.

Don couldn’t have been older than twenty-five.

Amelia and Frankie take down the last two members of the pack with brutal efficiency. Audrey’s eyes can’t even track their movements beyond two dark blurs in the field behind the Carnahan house. She can’t miss the bodies of the hounds when they fall. The great beasts lay on the grass in the moonlight, bloodied and broken. She feels no sympathy for them but the human shaped bite marks on the flank of the closest one gives her pause.

Dwight’s Guard are a stoic bunch, they’re Mainers after all. They wrap up Don with tarp kept in one of the trucks probably for just such a purpose. Their hands are careful but steady.

The Carnahans come out of the house now that the siege is over, armed with gasoline to burn the bodies of the hounds. They all come, father, mother, the boy looks about ten, the girls are younger. The kids follow their parents like ducklings. They survived this night. The monsters have been defeated. The children have to see that there’s nothing left to fear the mother insists.

Audrey wishes that were true.

Audrey and Nathan go into the shadow of the trees and work at coaxing Frankie and Amelia back to the truck. They’re trembling in the dark, clinging to one another, these two teenage girls she just asked to take on _monsters_ . It’s _not_ fair. It’s _not_ right. And if they hadn’t been there the whole group might have been massacred. Guilt burns in Audrey’s chest and she pulls the pseudo cure from her pocket, offers it to the girls then and there in the backseat of Duke’s truck.

Audrey sees hope replace fear with her words, a different kind of flame, and one she knows is just as apt to burn the world down. They talk quietly through Nathan and Duke getting in, all along the twists and turns of the old road with the moon peeking through the treetops at them.

Amelia’s lip trembles, she glances at Frankie. “A couple days after mom and dad… I was picking up Sophie and there was this little girl. She’d fallen on the playground, skinned her knee. Her mom just scooped her up, held her, kissing all over her face. I thought-- thought I’ll never have that again. Even though I’m too old for that it was just-- That’s-- that’s when the hunger started for me.”

Frankie reaches out and strokes her sister’s hair, understanding plain on her face.

Amelia laughs. “It’s funny, the last couple months, even living at the slaughterhouse hasn’t been so bad. At least we’re together, y’know. Even without mom and dad, we’re still a family; you and me and Sophie. And that? That’s stronger than the hunger.”

Frankie’s face blossoms, like a light has gone on somewhere inside. She recognizes the truth in Amelia’s words.

“That’s good,” Audrey encourages. “Follow that feeling, bring it to the forefront of your mind,” she tells Amelia.

Sure now that they have their trigger Audrey makes Nathan pull over and injects both the girls.

Frankie cries after Audrey gives her the cure.

“I don’t feel hungry,” she whispers to her sister, awe in every word as she swipes at her tears.

The girls clutch hands on the rest of the ride home and wake up little Sophie, even though it’s the middle of the night.

She scrubs one fist into a sleepy eye as she gazes at Audrey from under a tumble of bed head.

“What’s she doing here?” Sophie asks Frankie.

“Making things better,” Audrey answers, holding up the needle.

She hopes she’s making things better. She has to be. They can’t keep getting worse.


	8. Enough

The house is cold when they finally get home. It’s after midnight now, but the buzz of adrenaline is still humming through her veins. Duke’s been quiet the whole ride home. Audrey is too tired to fight any more. Nathan offers to go get the boxes from the garage and Audrey leaves them to it. She goes into the kitchen with her map of Haven, spreads it out on the kitchen table and starts marking off places where creatures from the void have been spotted.

Duke and Nathan sit on the floor of the living room going through the things saved from the Gull. Audrey appreciates the quiet background noise of their conversation, appreciates the fact that she can glance over and see that they’re there, safe. Don Keaton’s family won’t have that comfort any more.

She marks off place after place from their list, people Croatoan killed in red, attacks from creatures in blue. No pattern emerges, no bullseye to say they’re all originating from a central spot. The attacks from the creatures aren’t always on the Troubled, they seem fairly random, as if they’re just wandering around Haven and that’s a terrible thought. Monsters under Croatoan’s control would be awful, but monsters roaming free with no one holding their reins is worse. Croatoan’s using them, she believes, to scare the population, trigger more Troubles. It’s a good plan.

She leans further over the table and her back twinges reminding her of how much time she’s spent in this position already. She sits back with a sigh, bringing a hand up to rub at her tired eyes. She closes them for a second and she’s out in the woods, running, the wind in her face and fear in her throat. Crocotta nip at her heels, calling for her to stop, to save them in the voices of the townspeople.  The crocotta become heart hounds and the one that pounces on her has Croatoan’s eyes.

She sits up with a start to find Duke’s hand on her shoulder.

“Duke,” she sighs, glancing over to the living room to find Nathan’s not there. Duke’s in sweatpants, his hair a towel dried mess highlighted with the soft golden glow of the range light behind him.

“Come to bed,” he encourages softly.

“Duke—” she starts but she doesn’t know how to finish that sentence, her chest too full of emotions. She’s so tired it’s hard to sort them out.

Duke smiles, a sad, gentle curve of his lips. “It’s okay,” he says, tugging her out of her chair and into his arms. Audrey goes willingly into his embrace, presses herself all along the long, warm line of his torso. Relief and regret war in her veins. It’s _not_ okay and it’s so like him to pretend it is.

“I didn’t want to make that call with the Benton girls,” she tells him, wrapping her arms around his waist, holding on because she wasn’t sure she’d get to again.

“I know,” he rumbles. “Even when I was arguing against it I knew it wasn’t what you wanted, Audrey, but I had to say it, had to point out how fucked up it was.”

“It was. It is,” Audrey shudders, pressing closer, the heart hound with Croatoan’s eyes looming large in her mind’s eye.

Duke’s big hands smooth up and down her back, warm and comforting. “Thank you for listening to me,” he says. “I didn’t realize how much I needed to feel like I was heard until I couldn’t stop the words from coming out.”

Audrey pulls back to cup the bruise-free side of Duke’s jaw. “I’m sorry I made you feel like that before.” She means it. She means it so much. She’s going to do better though. “You’re important to me. _You_ , Duke,” she says thinking of his expression when he called himself her loyal dog in the void. “Not what you can do, not what your Trouble can do. You. You’re important to me.”

Duke’s eyes close at her words and she feels the big shuddery breath he takes. She pulls his forehead down to touch hers. “I’m sorry I couldn’t find another way tonight. I wanted to,” she breathes into the space between them.

“That matters,” he tells her, voice rough with emotion. “That you wanted to, that matters. I’m sorry I made a hard decision harder,” he murmurs, stroking his hand over the crown of her hair and down her back.

“No,” she answers. “You were right. It needed to be said. It was a messed up thing to do and I needed to hear that.”

Duke nods seriously. “I’m not going to back down if I think we can find a different way of doing things,” he warns.

“Silence has never been your strong suit,” she teases.

Duke snorts.

“But I need that. I need the reminder,” she tells him earnestly, wondering if Mara had anyone to drag her back from the edge like Duke and Nathan do for her.  “I don’t want to do any of this,” she whispers. “I don’t want to fight this war. We were so close to being done, this morning,” her breath hiccups and she forces down the sob that tries to break free. She’s so tired.

“I know, Audrey,” he soothes, pulling her close and she usually hates that, hates being soothed and comforted but tonight, tonight she might need that. She shouldn’t have to do this. She shouldn’t be making any of these calls. They should be celebrating the Troubles being gone for good tonight.

Instead she lets Duke lead her down the hall to the bedroom. Nathan’s just stepping out of the bathroom, scrubbing at his hair with a towel. He takes one look at her and pulls her into his embrace. Audrey chokes out a laugh but lets Nathan fold her into his arms anyway. God, what would she do without her boys?

Over her head Nathan makes a scandalized noise and pulls away.

“’S my side!” he tells Duke who has flopped down on the right side of the bed.

“I’m the guest, Nathan,” Duke argues smugly. “You make sacrifices for your guests,” he informs them.

Nathan all but growls and the two tussle on the bed, rolling playfully, distracting Audrey from her woes.

“Not a guest if you live here,” Nathan grunts.

“Are you implying I live here?” Duke stops struggling to stare at Nathan who takes the advantage to roll them over, sitting up straddling Duke’s waist.

“I don’t see you living anywhere else,” Audrey points out, perching on the edge of the mattress.

It’s Duke’s turn to give a scandalized squawk now, but there’s pleasure he can’t hide in his voice as he argues, “What kind of cheap date do you think I am? Moving in with you two after one night?”

“The cheapest,” Nathan answers dryly, rocks his hips into Duke’s on purpose.

“Nathan Wuornos! I am personally offended at that slight against my character,” Duke tells him voice full of bluster but his hands have gone to Nathan’s waist to hold him in place, meeting Nathan’s hips with a lazy thrust of his own.

“He looks very offended, Nathan,” Audrey says, a grin splitting her face, stretching her cheeks in such a good way. It surprises her how good it feels to smile. “You should apologize while I shower.”

“Audrey--” They both turn to her, playfulness falling away from their features.

“I’ll be quick,” she promises, “I can’t get into bed like this.” She doesn’t just mean the mud and muck from their battle with the heart hounds this evening.

\-----

When she opens the bathroom door they stop talking, guilty silence proving she was the topic of conversation. She can’t blame them for that. They shift apart for her, sticking her in the middle again. She thinks about demanding the right side of the bed just to be contrary, just because she knows either of them would give it to her if she asked. She wants the middle though, she wants the two of them on either side of her where she can feel them both, know that they’re safe.

She crawls into bed and makes a big show of eking out space between her boys. The lights are low, a t shirt tossed over the lamp to dim its glow. She doesn’t want to sleep in the dark any more than Nathan does, so she says nothing about it.

She curls up on her side, her head on Duke’s shoulder. Nathan fits himself against her back, reaching over her to twine his fingers with Duke’s. Audrey closes her eyes and catalogues all the places they’re touching, listens to their deep, even breaths in the dark, concentrates on the warm, smooth slide of skin on skin.

She tries to let it be enough but it doesn’t erase the cold pit of fear in her gut. They could so easily have been lost today, a dozen times – starting with Lisa, the spidren, the heart hounds and so many other times in between. What they’re trying to do with the Troubles is insane. They’re depending on blind faith to get them through.

“We got lucky tonight,” she blurts out, the words bubbling out without permission. She feels Nathan jerk awake behind her but she can’t seem to stop talking now. “We’ve been lucky all day. I don’t—I don’t know how long that luck is going to hold and I don’t know what’s going to happen when it runs o--.”

“Cross that bridge when we come to it, Parker,” Nathan rumbles against her back, warm and solid and _there_. Audrey blinks back the sudden sting of tears.

“We were almost done this morning,” she whispers, voice choked.

“We were close,” Duke agrees gently, lightly though she knows it weighs any way but lightly on his shoulders.

“Been close before,” Nathan says, “get there again. Get it done. Get it done right,” he promises.

Audrey bites her lip hard. He sounds so sure. She doesn’t know how she’s going to live up to that surety.

“It’s late and we’re all tired. We’ve done enough for today,” Duke says kissing her knuckles.

Tears fill her eyes at the gesture and she closes them quickly. “Yeah,” she nods.

Audrey lapses into silence. They’re curing the Troubled. She should feel better about that than she does but it’s a half cure and what if it doesn’t work on the next person she tries or what if it stops working for one of the people who have already received it. It doesn’t feel like a relief, doesn’t feel like a victory yet, can’t when there’s still Croatoan to deal with.

“Audrey,” Duke says gently, running a finger down her nose.

She blinks at him, half stupid with exhaustion.

“Sleep,” he orders, amusement tingeing his words.

Nathan wraps his arm around her waist, pulls her in tight against his chest, fits her head snug beneath his chin.

“Sleep, Parker,” he seconds.

Audrey closes her eyes, feels Nathan reach out to tangle his fingers with Duke’s. She cracks an eyelid and smiles weakly at the sight.

They lay quietly for long moments but she can’t shut her brain off and the words are going to choke her if she doesn’t let them out.

“We need to find him,” she tells her boys in the darkness. Nathan startles awake again and she’s sorry but she feels like she’s drowning. All those lives she changed today from Dwight to Sophie Benton, they’re all depending on her for this and she doesn’t know what she’s doing. “I need to stop him.” The worry that she won’t, that she can’t, hangs unsaid but ever present.

“We’ll find him, Parker,” Nathan murmurs into her hair. His breath gusts warm over her ear. The certainty in his voice is both soothing and nerve-wracking. How can he be so sure?

“I don’t know what to do once we find him,” she confesses. It’s only here in the dark and quiet of their bedroom that she can admit that to these two, her boys, her war council, her _partners_. “I don’t know how to—”

Duke squeezes her hand, cuts her off. “ _We’ll_ figure that out tomorrow, Audrey.”

“Not alone in this,” Nathan chimes in.

It’s not an answer, but maybe it’s enough. It’s enough that she can say the words here. It’s enough that it’s okay not to know here. And she’s _not_ alone, she has Nathan and Duke and whatever happens they’re going to do their damnedest to fix things. Maybe they don’t know all the answers now but they will.

“Flying by the seat of our pants is kind of our specialty,” Duke jokes.

Audrey huffs a quiet laugh. That’s mostly true.

“’least Duke and I aren’t punching each other,” Nathan points out.

“I’m not going to say that was mostly your fault but…”

“Hey!”

Audrey elbows Nathan lightly. “It was mostly your fault,”

Nathan grumbles but tightens his arm around her. “’least you’re still Audrey,” he says. She is! There’s no one in here but herself. And if she’s honest, she’s felt more like herself today than she has in weeks. She’s no longer worrying about what to do. She’s _doing something_ even if it turns out to be the wrong thing.

“That is a very big point in our favor,” Duke adds, squeezing her fingers. She opens her eyes to find him watching her in the dim light. She gives him a half smile that he returns. It’s so good to have him here. Audrey reaches out and traces that smile with her thumb. Duke kisses the pad of her finger. They’re trying to make her feel better. So she takes a breath and thinks of something to add.

“And, Haven hasn’t blown up,” she says, though she can’t help but add “yet” to that.

Duke makes a face at her.

She makes one back at him, takes a deep breath and settles. They’re right. She has to let it go for now or she won’t sleep.

Things are bad but she still has them, both of them. “It’s us right, the three of us,” she brushes her thumb over Duke’s cheekbone and he leans into the touch instead of going still. She’s counting that as a win. “We’ll figure it out. We’ve got to.”

“We will,” Nathan promises.

“We will,” Duke agrees.

Audrey nods and finally, finally falls asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Got a favorite part? A scene you liked? A line? Why not tell me about it in the comments? :)


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